“Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign reportedly issued a total of roughly $122 million in refunds to supporters in 2020,” in many cases because of deceptive fundraising tactics, The Hill reported on Saturday, April 3, 2021.
The campaign’s tactics included setting up “recurring donations as the default for online donors,” making donors “manually uncheck a box to opt out,” adding “a second prechecked box that doubled a person’s contribution,” and burying notice of these practices in “fine-print,” The Hill said. The victims, who included retirees and military veterans, “sent fraud complaints to banks and credit card companies after reporting unauthorized withdrawals from their accounts,” The Hill said. Read story here.
The New York Times described several specific cases, including a man in hospice care living on “less than $1,000 per month” who was repeatedly taken for $500 “donations” until his bank account was completely drained and “his rent and utility payments bounced” (photo left, details here; read story here). Read more here.
Needless to say, whether it’s legal or not, financially exploiting vulnerable senior citizens is heartless and cruel. (There are laws against it, which probably is why Trump made the refunds.) It’s not the first time a GOP-affiliated group has done it. The Seattle Times reported in 2004 (here) about College Republicans preying on senior citizens using similar tactics.
Say, whatever happened to Trump’s promise to pay for his campaigns himself?